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Trail camera footage of the northern quoll. | Credit: AWC<\/p>\n
An endangered marsupial that went missing from an Australian wildlife sanctuary<\/a> for 80 years has suddenly popped up again on a trail camera<\/a>.<\/p>\n The reserve, jointly owned by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) and The Tony & Lisette Lewis Foundation, announced in January that it had photographed a northern quoll on the 164,850 hectares of land, despite ecologists concluding that the squirrel-like mammals had abandoned the plains.<\/p>\n The little critter was photographed using a motion-sensor trail camera on the eastern side of the reserve. Northern quolls once occupied northern and eastern Australia, but invasive species and habitat loss have had a damning effect on the animal\u2019s numbers.<\/p>\n According to the reserve\u2019s website, a quoll was photographed by a trail camera in the nearby Pascoe River IPA in 2017, but they haven\u2019t been spotted within the boundaries of the AWC\u2019s reserve for 80 years.<\/p>\n What is perhaps most amazing about this story is that the camera trap didn\u2019t photograph a quoll by accident. It was little more than a hunch, after sighting a rocky outcrop from a helicopter, that prompted sanctuary manager Nick Stock to set up a camera trap. Only a few days later, Nick\u2019s hunch was proven right.<\/p>\n The northern quoll is the smallest of the four Australian quoll species | Credit: Alamy<\/p>\n The sanctuary quoted AWC Wildlife Ecologist, Dr Helena Stokes, as stating: \u201cThis record gives us a roadmap. We now have a clear starting point for future surveys and research.\u201d<\/p>\n If you\u2019re interested in camera traps and how they\u2019re used in conservation, I\u2019d implore you to watch The Wild Ones on Apple TV+<\/a>, where camera trap expert Declan Burley lays hundreds of traps in a bid to film and photograph some of the world\u2019s rarest animals.<\/p>\n You might also like… <\/p>\n Camera traps are having a bit of a moment! Underwater camera films shark in Antarctic Ocean, thought to be a world first<\/a>. Perhaps you’re interested in wildlife photography and would like to check out the best wildlife cameras<\/a>. Plus, my ‘Big Three\u2019 camera brands for serious wildlife photography<\/a>. Do you agree?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Trail…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,106565,95351,128,251820,251821,27421,69458,338,30351],"class_list":["post-500588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-camera-trap","tag-northern-quoll","tag-science","tag-the-australian-wildlife-conservancy","tag-tony-lisette-lewis-foundation","tag-trail-camera","tag-underwater-camera","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"HWR5AJ](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/7e53bffe426098f79cadb7c56b1829ee.jpeg\"\/)
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